D.E. Bartley Scifi sunday's with the Hipriestess

Archive for December, 2010

I leave this testament as a warning to the future, if there is a future. The infection spreads across the world, corrupting all that it touches. I do not have the power or courage to stop it, I do not know if anyone does. I have seen it claim my friends and family. I shall not let it claim me. Death shall claim me: unsullied, strong, pure. The poison that I have administered is quick and painless – death before dishonour, you could say. I pray I find death and it will still be there.

I have seen what the scourge has done to the world and I do not wish to become a part of it. It is no longer my world, but a mockery of all we held dear.

It started so very innocuously, as such world-altering events often do. A military raid in a little place called Ghazni, you’ve probably never heard of it.

OFFICER’S REPORT: August 17th. Vagrant; male, Moslem. No ID at time of arrest, no name given or forthcoming from questioning. Ragged clothes, no shoes, no money at time of arrest. Vagrant was very happy, however, and very co-operative in nature. Believed to be intoxicated: at least we can’t see why he would be so damned happy, considering his circumstances; perhaps deranged? He was found wandering in a poppie field. (cf. psych report) When questioned about his incongruously happy state (i.e. what drug he had taken), vagrant laughed; stated “I got the TRUTH! You want some, man?” Vagrant was subsequently searched again for drugs; none found. Tests were inconclusive, seemed to be clean.  Locals call him “Al Mahdi”

How wrong they were. They just couldn’t detect it, that’s all. If they would have gotten rid of that vagrant then, they could have saved the world.

OFFICIAL MEMO, August 21st, from the desk of Sergeant Murphy.

Re: Gitmo Protocol. No officer is allowed within 3 feet of Prisoner Hicks. After the severe attitude change of Officers Sanchez, Williams and Carpenter, we believe that Hicks still has a quantity of Truth and is disseminating it – his continued state of happiness testifies he has enough to feed his own addiction as well as spreading it to others. If you are exposed to his preaching, you shall be dismissed as have Sanchez, Williams and Carprenter. This is a message for your OWN PROTECTION. Prisoner Hicks, a converted Christian is dangerous and his religious beliefs are dangerous.

You see, it started to spread, like some inexorable cancer. Just as hard to stop – no cure; a suppression; a remission. But it still lay there, like a silent serpent, to lunge when defenses were lowered. They tried, as I tried, but they failed, as I failed.

OFFICIAL MEMO, August 25th, from the desk of Sergeant Murphy.

I have interviewed Prisoner Hicks and after careful deliberation I have violated my own orders. Prisoner Hicks has shared his incredible insights with me, it has made me so happy, it has made my life complete. All the officers whom I have dismissed I welcome back with open arms; I apologize, please forgive me. All of you, please visit Prisoner Hicks yourselves but be quick; since he will be released on the 28th.  Join me in sharing this great tiding!

Thankfully, Sergeant Murphy was quickly relieved of command by Internal Security. Some noble individual obviously reported his treasonous activities to the proper authorities. Prisoner Hicks was not released as promised. When Internal Security stepped in and saw the threat to our great nation, they locked down Gitmo and had their top scientists work on the nature of his contagious truth.  Believing his words to be some lethal edict against This great country, Prisoner Hicks was declared a Terrorist and was sequestered away in a hermetically sealed cell. None of this took his euphoria away. This proved how dangerous his truth was. Hicks was put through extreme torture. Water boarding, sleep deprivation, hours of exercise that would have weakened any ‘normal’ man.

PROGRESS REPORT: Special Agent Beck.

We have been compromised. The hermetic seals have been sabotaged, we have infiltrators within our ranks. Guantanamo is psychically affecting our black ops officers. Too many of our agents have gone rogue; colleagues whom I have depended on for years suddenly have changed their ways. A break-out by key infiltrators was attempted last night and almost succeeded. Hicks-afflicted rogue agents seem to be particularly peaceful and non-confrontational. If they weren’t I believe we would all be dead by now. It’s like we’ve been invaded by flower children! More on this as it breaks. We must stop this, the consciousness of our new world order depends upon it!

(This, however, is Special Agent Beck’s last report. He is believed to have gone rogue also. Within the month all agents at the facility became afflicted, inexplicably listening to the Imam who was preaching to the prisoners at Gitmo. All agents were removed for detoxification and rehabilitation; a new squad of Internal Security was deployed to secure Prisoner Hicks.)

Something had to be done. Euphoria was spreading all over the country; no one could stop its relentless advance. Everyone forgot about the depression. Entire groups of people, everywhere, without any definable connection with one another were being addicted; calling themselves “Seekers of TRUTH”. They networked; they grew in strength, an insidious infection upon our country. Fortunately wiser, rational people held the reins of power and sought to behead this Moslem viper before it could strike.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: March 22,.

Due to his treasonous activities threatening the social fabric of our fine nation, Prisoner Hicks is sentenced for execution by lethal injection on July 4. His beliefs have become a scourge upon our streets – everywhere can be seen the happy, smiling face of the Seeker of the ressurection.  Removing the leader of this corruptive, criminal syndicate that promotes widespread and frequent use of Moslem propaganda should halt this terrible plague which he has unleashed upon us. Ladies and gentlemen; I promise I shall stop the spread of Moslem conversion that is corrupting our youth and destroying the fabric of our society. Our Truth shall march on, by any means necessary. My government and I shall save you, loyal patriotic citizens that you are, from exposure to the religious fanatics who call themselves ‘truth seekers.’ . And I say to you; truth has no place in this great country of ours or anywhere else in the world.

A voice of sanity against the tide of madness.

The frequency of break-out attempts by the Seekers intensified a hundredfold, they did not succeed in Prisoner Hick’s release at Gitmo. Political groups argued in court long and hard for his sentence to be revoked, but a presidential decree has too much weight for such insignificant attacks to make any difference. Prisoner Hicks was executed at his appointed time. However the Seekers of Truth had gained in Hick’s sacrifice the very model of a modern martyr – he went to his death with joy suffusing his features – we couldn’t take that away from him, no matter how hard we tried. I’m afraid that his rapture did make me somewhat wistful, I hoped someday I would experience such bliss, even for just a moment. But that would mean accepting his beliefs, his religion, his god awful truth – and I did not want such taint upon my soul. I could not relate it to anything I already knew, it was so different to the established order. Perhaps I was just content with what I had, unwilling to risk my worldview by exposing myself to the possibility of Euphoria without monetary means.

THE TIMES, July 7,
Although the President expected the death of Prisoner Hicks to paralyze the Seekers of truth it seems that membership of this strange group is steadily increasing. Whole towns have joined this seemingly tranquil movement. Peaceful demonstrations have been held;  BRING “Allah” TO THE PEOPLE, one of their more popular slogans. It seems the death of Prisoner Hicks, while meant to stop the Seekers of truth has actually accelerated their cause, there are now  Photos and Billboards of “Al Mahdi” embellishing highways and roads across America, his name is everywhere, the internet is humming with the return of the great savior.

It was true. We cut the head off the snake, not knowing it was the Hydra of legend. A multitude of heads appeared; too many cells of resistance to be put down. Racing across the country like raging wildfire; spread to all nations. We were the best hope of the world, perhaps the biggest lie, but we could not stop the power of free will, which is the basis for the Moslem religion..They say it is the will of Allah. But we knew better, it was personal free will, the crux of the ressurection.   Sure we pushed Reincarnation, but the sheeple just wouldn’t go for it.

Too little, too late.

What is the truth? Is mine the same as yours? It must be very addictive, beyond the siren’s call of heroin or cocaine, the stuff the government has been feeding the sheeple to keep them subservient. It must be very powerful, leading these addicts to fight, maim and die for their belief in it. However, some have resisted its enticing seduction, they speak of such terror and agony that it has brought them, haunted night after night by tortured dreams. Free will seems to be a paradox, pleasure and pain hopelessly combined together.

My children, my spouse, my friends. All joined the burgeoning tide – all Seekers of truth. This leap of faith has taken all I held dear away from me by their willing surrender to what has possessed their souls.

I know they feel pity and sorrow for me because I have not joined them; I feel pity and sorrow for them because they have been warped and twisted to unrecognizability by their faith. They are no longer what they were before, they are no longer patriotic, they are no longer willing to pick up arms and kill.  They are no longer on the side of the Zionist Jew.

The thing that pains me is that they are so happy. They cry “the truth shall set you free!” and perhaps, for them, it has. I can feel myself dying as I write this, mercifully the torment will end soon.

Gentle reader, you have read my account. I chose to refuse the offer of this truth, Suspicious of what it would do to my ego, to my way of life…seeing it as the total demise of our great nation, how can we truly say “In God we trust,” if we allow this nonsense to continue?

It was a cold winter’s day. The sun was streaming reckless patterns of shadows through the trees. The old man was sitting under the huge Catalpa tree. He blended with the tree as if they were the same age and perhaps of the same wooden soul.  His swollen hand gently touched the dark brown wood of his cane.

The trip here had been long and the roads had become an unkept swirl of dusty potholes. The bridge where he had fished as a boy could not be utilized. He had been forced to leave the car there and walk through the forest of  dark gnarled Aspen and ash.

A breeze was beginning to slowly pick its’ way through the shadowed glen. The shade had revived him and his thoughts wandered to the past he had loved.  He had to come back!  Had to see this place that embraced him as a child. A place where he had once been happy, where he ran through the hills and played in the creek with joy in his heart. A time when he was adored by aunts, his uncles and his beloved grandfather. There were always crayfish and turtles to catch in the little creek and swimming in the old millpond as he and his cousins roamed the woods through fun-filled summer days.

He had brought his young bride, Melissa , here.  Had listened to her singing as he worked the fields and she planted every empty space with her roses. Her freshly starched aprons billowing in the breeze as her face glowed with the innocent blush from a heart filled with love.

She had an old piece of tattered paper someone had given her. The paper had all the types of roses and a meaning for each color. Sometimes she would take it out, look at it, then fold it and slowly put it in her apron pocket. She had the same fierce belief in the rose paper as she did in the Bible.

Each night as she darned and patched his work worn clothes she would read from the Bible. Some nights she would also read from the rose paper telling him the colors and their meaning. The one Melissa  always stressed most was the pink  rose. She said it was the rose of joyous ,  and true love. She told him that the pink rose growing by their old horse corral was  special. Melissa  thought God must have placed the pink  rose by the corral to grow and bloom. It was the first flower she saw when she came to live with her husband and she knew that this pink  rose was placed there with God’s love and for her enjoyment. She believed it was a symbol of divine purity, a glimpse of God’s mercy and kindness to bestow grace and happiness upon her whole family. The rose made her feel that she would be protected and sheltered in this place and that God would care for anyone who tended this rose.

He never told her that one day, while working in the field, he had closed his eyes and prayed that she would be his wife. When he opened his eyes he saw a rose of purest pink shining in the sunlight, in the meadow. He had brought it home and planted it beside the corral , the same day he proposed to her, on that Christmas morning.

From then on it was referred to as the corral rose. It was a sturdy rose and you could smell the blooms floating in the breezes clear into the fields. When Melissa  was buried the  pink rose had been dug up and planted at her grave site. The years slipped by, swallowed up in the turning pages and the bloom of the rose.

Here was the home where he had been born and the old home place had become his. The place had been inherited through the passage of death and time. It had covered his childhood, his marriage and the birth of his children. Somewhere the deaths had started. He could never quite remember the exact time. One by one like leaves falling from a tree preparing for the harshness of winter’s blast. Imperceptible, at first, as to the complete devastation that awaited him, then building to a final crescendo to crush his tired body and soul. Even his children played here, laughing at the wonders he had known as a child. Then they were gone. In the time it had taken for his heart to break, they were all gone.

All his life had once stood here in this small, insignificant tumble of trees. All had gone now, erased by the unforgiving, wretched hand of God. The progressions of death to fulfill some purpose that only God knew or murdered by a maniacal God hungry for power, it made no difference. How ridiculous that anyone could fall for such a simple explanation of the suffering he had endured because of this so called God of mercy. The God of forgiveness was a hoax. The God he knew was a God all right, a God of death and destruction, of total indifference to anything that had existed or could exist in his life.

Time existed now, only in an empty place. His body and soul filled with that emptiness. “Nothing left for you to take now God, except me. You forgot one, you forgot me. Come out and get me now. Take me to your place of divine peace and understanding, you old deceiver. You’ve always been a taker, take me!” He tried to stand as he swore at God but the thoughts of his young bride planting her roses, telling him the stories of each one brought years of pent up grief and tears to his eyes. He fell back against the tree and hated God for his handiwork. The loneliness filled his heart and the old man cried in the barren breeze as it lilted gently through the places his heart so loved. Unseen now by his sleeping body, the falling leaves tumbled down around him to cover the broken spaces.

A crackle of lightning awakened him from the nightmares of sleep and he knew God’s answer to the prayers he prayed so long ago.  He would be granted his Christmas wish.

He fumbled for his bottle of water only to find it empty. A gentle rain was falling through the trees and he smiled as he threw his head back and enjoyed the drops of water as they fell. He wanted more and rummaged through the pack for a leftover can to scoop the water from a puddle so he could try to prime  near the old corral.
He raised his body slowly, leaning heavily on the tree for needed support. If he could just make it down the little rise he could get to the old corral.  He could imagine exactly where it was from where he stood and surely it would still be there. Damn these half blind eyes!  He kept edging his way down the hill using his cane. Working little by little, as he always had, until he was beside the corral.
He filled the water bottle, then drank deeply of the fresh clear water. Sitting quietly now, looking at the dilapidated house that he had once called home. As he was putting the water bottle down, lightning struck nearby. Startled, he jumped in fear. His hand touched something and he looked to see the one rose still growing in the yard. His aged eyes had dimmed and he again fumbled in the pack for the glasses which allowed him to see clearly. He peered at the  the place the old rose bush used to be, and behold, a rose  grew there,  his weary eyes could not believe what he was seeing.   He pulled his pocket knife out and cut it clear down to the root. But for some reason he couldn’t throw it down, couldn’t stomp it into the ground like he thought he wanted to do. Instead, he just kept holding it in his old arthritic hand.

The sun was starting to fade as he looked once more at the place where his hopes and dreams had flourished, then withered and died. He started to walk and with each step the pain in his tired legs worsened. Totally exhausted by the time he reached his truck,  he leaned on the truck  door for a long time willing his strength back enough to open the door and drive away.

There was a bottle of whiskey laying in the seat and he opened the bottle with one hand and took a swallow before he headed out on the dusty old road.

He never saw the semi-truck headed straight for him, Never heard the loud blast from the driver’s horn or the crashing metal. All he saw was blood tricking down his hand. He had been holding the pink rose so tightly the thorns had embedded into his skin deep enough to make him bleed.

He marveled at this. That such a beautiful thing could be so destructive. Then it seemed as if a white splendor was all around him, covering him with love. He was holding his wife. His family was swirling around him in the white mist. It was so peaceful here. He was so loved, so understood. He had found forgiveness. He followed the white peace toward a light and he realized that for the first time in his life he could truly see, truly understand everything. His pitiful life lay behind him now in a disappearing wisp of grey smoke.
The truck driver looked at the massive wreckage that lay in front of him. The old man had been thrown from the car into a small creek and looked as if his neck had been broken. He most certainly was dead and no amount of CPR would bring him back. The truck didn’t seem to even have a dent in it. Then the driver saw the pink rose in the man’s hand. The rose was freshly bloomed with a glowing quality to it.  But this was the dead of  winter, something the driver had read once about pink  roses kept haunting him, but he just couldn’t remember. It certainly looked as though the   rose hadn’t done this poor old fellow any good. The only blood on the old man was on the hand that grasped that beautiful pink   rose, for dear life.

“Do you believe in God?” Asked David’s Uncle Sam.
”No.” David replied. Only he had no idea what he was in for.

Sam took a long drag off the cigarette hanging from his mouth, and put the cigarette between his index finger and middle. He gently dumped the long train of ashes in the nearby ashtray. ”Well I certainly do!” he said, then picked up the bottle of beer that sat beside his chair on the side table. He then took a long look at David, knowing that he was missing his parents, and that there was nothing he could do to cheer him up, but he might be able to give David some kind of hope. All he had to do was to be with him for the holiday weekend.

”You know David when I was your age, the boys and I would run up that there hill and get on a sled and zoom…”
Just then David interrupted. “”Why do you believe in God, Sam?””

Taken a bit by surprise Sam’s eyes widened, “”Well it was back in 1963 in this little place where my five brothers and I lived.”

”Was my dad there too?”” asked David “

”Yes your dad was there too,”” Sam put his beer down and slid a photo album from under the table were the beer sat. he put it on David’s lap “”It’s all in there, Take a look..go on your dad is in there when he was just about your age…”…” Sam picked up his beer once more “

“Gracy?” could ya bring me another beer please?””
”Sure.” Grace quietly slipped in and out of the living room yet being ever intent on the story that was to come.

”So.. where was I?”” Sam started again. “” oh yea….It was the day before Christmas eve, and your dad was hopping mad that we didn’t have a Christmas tree that year. So when we got home from school, he went out to the garage and grabbed five shovels. One for each of us, and handed them out to us. He told us we were going to shovel driveways and sidewalks for money so we could buy a tree for our mom and dad.”

“”Did you make a lot of money?”” asked David, his eyes widening at the mention of his father.
Sam laughed “”Money ha! There wasn’t any snow on the ground yet”
“So why would you go?” asked David “
”Ah but…”…” Sam interrupted “”We were asking the same darn question of our brother, just then it began to snow, and snow, and snow, it was like a miracle, there was no forecast, it snowed because your daddy wanted it so bad, the way you constantly beg me for a horse.”

“”Wow, cool, then what happened?”” asked David

Sam cracked open his second beer. ””So we went from door to door asking people if they would like us to shovel away their snow, and the five of us that day made a pile of money.”

”How much?”” asked David

“Well it wasn’t a matter of how much we made, because I really don’t remember . But it was enough to buy a Christmas tree, a turkey, and a gift for our mother and father. Your dad looked after that for us.””

“So the miracle was the fact that it snowed. Right uncle Sam?”” asked David

“Oh no, the next day the snow had all melted away.”” Sam grabbed for another cigarette from his pack, but Grace pointed her finger at him, so Sam had to just grit his teeth, and tucked his pack of cigarettes under the cushion of the arm chair. David began to look through the photo album. “”So on Christmas morning we had all gotten up to open our gifts. But there were only two gifts under the tree, one for our dad, and one for our mother.”

”You didn’t get anything for Christmas?”” asked David wondering.

”No, not a single thing…”” Sam Said bluntly. “But we couldn’t wait to see the look on our parent’s faces, when they opened their presents.”

”Boy, that must have been sad for you all!”” David said.

”Hum, not really, I waved my hand to my brothers as our parents sat at the breakfast table in silence, and we grabbed the shovels once again, and just as we walked out the door, that Christmas day, it began to snow again. My brothers asked me how I knew it was going to snow, and I told them I read the weather report in the newspaper. They all had a good laugh. So that whole winter we made money shoveling snow.”” Sam’s beer was empty again. So Sam got up and threw the empty can away.
“We shoveled snow, so that we could eat. And it snowed every time your daddy would grab that shovel.”
David noticed a sleigh in one of the pictures, “”do you still have this sleigh?”” he asked and pointed to the sleigh in the picture.

”Oh yes,”” said Sam “”would you like to see it?”” he asked.

”Sure!”” exclaimed David Sam and David slipped on their boots, put on their coats, and dashed out side to see the sleigh. Just then the phone rang,

”I’ll get it!”” Grace yelled.

She picked up the phone “”Hello?”” .
“Grace, its Mike, how are you?”

”Oh, hi Mike, good of you to call”” she said.

”Is there anything I can bring over for the Christmas dinner?” ”asked Mike.

Grace did not have to think very long for an answer.

“Yes there is.”…
“”Well what do you need?”” added Mike

“Mike do you have any old pictures of your brother and his wife?”
”Yes we have lots of pictures from the days when we lived next door to each other.”

“Could you please bring them over?”” Grace asked.

“Sure I could, but I’m curious as to why?” asked Mike

“Well, today it looks like David and Sam really hit it off for the first time, and David was looking at some old pictures of his dad, I think it’s helping him to grieve. He has really opened up today.” Grace started to hold back her cries of sadness and joy.

”That’s wonderful Grace, I’ll be sure to bring them. Bye now.”

Mike hung up the phone. Grace continued to cry cheerfully to herself, as she peeled some potatoes for the Christmas dinner. It had been months since David had any kind of real conversation, and inner action with anyone. Today had been the first day in a long time that she saw the boy in such a good mood. The death of his parents was a sudden shock to the whole family. This was a day of healing for Grace and her family. Sam put back a cigarette, didn’t take a third beer, and David was on the mend. It was now noon Christmas eve day when the door bell rang. Grace answered the door, and Mike was standing there with photo albums in hand along with a few bags of food.

”here ya go Grace, I have more stuff in the truck..” ” Mike said with a smile. He proceeded back out to the truck.

Grace said with a surprised look “oh…… o.k.” ” As she started to haul in the goods. Grace carefully placed the photo albums in sight on top of the living room coffee table knowing that David would see them there. One of David’s favorite sitting spots was on the living room floor right by the coffee table.

“”I sure hope you have a lot of room under the tree for all these gifts?”” yelled Mike from the lane way.

By the time Grace had got back to the door Mike had piled more stuff by the open door way, and was gone for a third trip back to the truck. Grace just shook her head, and continued to haul in the packages, and bags of food. “”expecting an army are you?”” yelled Grace

”Yup, Chris called to say he could make it, So I brought over more food in case you ran out” Mike laughingly said.

”Well you’re going to have to peel more potatoes and carrots, Mike.”” Grace said as she folded her arms and tapped here foot.

”O.K. I can do that…” Mike said with a smile.
That evening Sam, Grace , David, Mike , Chris his wife and their three children all sat down for their traditional family Christmas eve dinner. David had found the photo albums sitting on the coffee table and he and his three cousins spent most of the evening flipping through the pictures and asking all kinds of questions of Grace and her sister in-law, while the men were in the kitchen cleaning up the dishes. Later that evening after the children were put to bed, Sam Mike and Chris told the Girls there going out for a walk with the dogs.

”What! we can’t come along?”” asked Mike’s wife Clair

”Well you can if you want, but we were kind of hoping to do a little man talk..”” piped up Sam

”Oh you guys go ahead, I wanted to show Clair the newly finished basement anyway,”” Grace said with a smirk.

The men headed out and had almost forgotten to call the dogs. “”Well that was close.”” Mike stated.

”It sure was, I didn’t want to have to come out here too late in the night”.” Sam said “”Grace might have picked up on what we were up to.”

After a long walk down the road to the next road turn out, the three men approached a pickup truck, with another man waiting. At the end of the truck was attached a horse trailer.
”Thanks Jim” Mike said “”we’ll unload the horse if you could just drop that bundle of hay in the corner of the field, I’d be thankful”.

”No problem Mike, I sure wouldn’t want to be you fellows come morning when your wives see that horse. ”

”We have it all figured out.”Said Sam

”Sure you do”” laughed Jim At that the three men made their way back to the house with horse in hand.
They had made it look like the horse had jumped over the side yard fence, they pushed in the fence to the ground. They tried to make it look like the hay blew into the field. The dogs were a little hard to control, but they managed.

Their little gift was all set up. All they needed now was a little luck and hoped that the horse would be fairly quiet through the night. Just then it started to snow. The men slowly walked back to the house, all of them wiping tears from their eyes.

The next morning the adults woke up to the sound of children yelling and laughing in the yard. Grace looked out the window and turned to Sam “”You didn’t! oh my God you did!”

And there in the field stood a young beautiful white mare. “”It’s more my fault, I talked him into it, but I can take the horse back any time!”” Explained Mike.

Sam looked at Grace “”We need to know now Grace, if the boy can keep the horse, because we have to get out there before the kids terrorize her.”

”The boy is going to have to look after her, and you too Sam!”” Grace demanded.

”That was going to be the deal”” Sam sighed. Everyone put some clothing on and rushed outside to greet the horse.

”Can I keep her!”” yelled David, as he saw Sam come out.

“How do you know it’s female?”” asked Sam.

“I know the difference between a mare and a stallion” retorted David.

“How the heck did that horse get in here?” asked Sam.

”She must’ve jumped the fence, over there…”” David pointed to where the horse tracks lead to the edge of the fence.
“”Well..” Sam said slowly “”If we can’t find the owner, I guess you can keep her, but you have to feed her and brush her every day.”

Sam of course would only find the owner if the boy was incapable of looking after the horse.

”Sure I can do that, everyday!”” David repeated

”So what are you going to name her David?”” Asked Grace

“It’s got to be a good horse name David”” Said Mike

”That’s right, can’t give a horse a human name.”” Explained Chris

“Well David?”” Sam asked with curiosity.

For a while David stood there and thought he would name the horse in memory of his Mother and Father, and there was only one name that came to mind. David then turned to everyone and with great joy he said ””Snow!… I’m naming her Snow!”

There were the three of us.

Me, I’m Katima my sister Ria, and my mother Habeeb. If I ever actually called her that, I would still feel the smack well into my grave.

We loved street magicians, performers, fakirs. We traveled from Turkey, all along the Gulf of Aden in search of them, and had seen dozens of great magicians and miracle workers.

A man in Misratah ate fire. Not just a wad of fuel soaked cotton in his mouth for a second, mind you. He would reach into his wood stove and come back with great handfuls of flames. Then he would lick his palms, show us his burning tongue, and chuff out his cheeks for us. Me and my sister thought this was terribly funny, and he would clown a little more for us before swallowing. Then he would spew a great lungful of smoke at us that smelled  like truck fumes.

There was a woman in As-Karabuk who would make the shore crabs dance. She would wave her hands and sing to them, and they would line up for meters, then do steps and shuffles for us. We would sing and clap along with the woman, and the crabs would wave their claws in time with us. I would pick them up and put them down a few feet away, but they ran back to their places, seeming kind of embarrassed. My mother often selected a few of the big ones for us to cook later on.

There were others, less amusing. A child in Tukrah could produce liquor from her palms, and would gibber like a crazy person the whole time, holding her hands up to the sun. A woman who lived east of Suree caused black motor oil to leak from animals. I still remember a lamb that choked to death on the stuff, dying in front of us while the slime flowed from its ears.

There was also the great guru of Asbeki, who could pick up anything with his penis. It was quite an amazing act, watching him use it like he was using one of his hands. It reminded me of an elephant using his trunk.

Then there was the rope trick.

We had heard about a man in Banghazi who did an amazing act. He only appeared once in a great while, and people would crowd to him when he did. His name, or at least what people called him, was al-Akbar.

I remember that ride along the coast, in the back of a truck hauling chickens. Ria was holding a chick, petting and cooing to it, and Mother was counting her henna needles and vials. I looked out along the beach, watching the sea birds swoop and play. Sometimes, it looked like they came too close to the ground, and turned into people walking along the beach. Maybe there was too much sun.

Bursa was nice, but the bazaar was just like any other. Stall after stall, full of things people didn’t really need. Not that we could criticize: My mother sold packets of hand ground henna and did applications on middle class women’s palms. Ria and myself would sing pretty songs for a few dinars near her chosen spot, so she could keep an eye on us. I always wanted to wander off, but I also enjoyed the singing… Its one of my favorite memories of Ria.

After we had made a little money, we went looking for al-Akbar after the Dhuhr prayer. Wandering through the rows, we listened for laughing or cheering, or the clink of coins thrown to the ground.

We didn’t hear any of these things, and came across him quite by accident. He was a bit out from the main souk, in a field of sickly looking weeds. A crowd was around him, but they were silent. It was creepy, like a dead spot in the world.

Working our way through to the front, we saw him: everyone’s idea of a Sufi mystic. He wore standard fakir clothing. A turban, and white, billowy pants. He had an ugly leather bracelet on, with nonsensical script embossed around it. It matched his ugly face well. He had a scraggly beard, with thin lips and a sharp nose. His eyebrows were unkempt, and his eyes looked as if he hadn’t slept in years.

The most unusual thing about him was the rope, though. He had a long length of rough rope coiled around his neck, from his chin to the top of his stomach. It looked like a lion’s mane, piled up on his shoulders. The two ends dangled at his sides, bouncing in the sea wind from the west.

His eyes wouldn’t focus on anything… his face remained blank. I had seen the look before, but not when the fakir was waiting for the crowd. Usually they walked around and talked to the people, joking with the adults and doing small stunts for the children.

But he didn’t stay that way for long. Almost as soon as we had arrived, he came to, in a way. Still not looking at any one thing in particular, he started speaking in a rough, hollow voice.

“I will leave soon. Who will join me?”

My uncle smoked eighty American cigarettes a day, and still didn’t have a voice like that. It sounded like he had burnt his throat with glass and acid.

The crowd was silent.

“Nobody will come with me? There are beautiful things to see, strange things to do.”

Not a sound. I held Ria in front of me, with Mother at our side. None of us wanted to go anywhere. The whole thing was very creepy.

Finally, he snapped his long fingers. I felt my sister jerk a little at this, and he spoke up again: “Nobody?”

Then it happened.

Ria had always been a noisy kid, the kind that screams out whats she thinking and feeling at any time. It had gotten her into trouble at mosque many times, but I think my mother appreciated it in a way. At least, she had never tried very hard to break her of it.

But this time it betrayed her. She made a kind of hurr-ing sound, like a half formed thought. I heard her try to catch herself, but it was too late. Al-Akbar’s head turned towards us.

I started dragging her back into the press of the crowd, whispering curses at her foolishness. She backtracked with me, and I could feel her shaking in my arms.

Al-Akbar had started to slowly stride in our direction, his coils of rope bouncing slightly. I stepped farther back, but ran into the front of someone who wouldn’t move. I could see him coming at us, splitting the crowd like a knife splits fruit. His eyes seemed to be changing colors, from a normal dark brown to yellow. I started to feel real fear at this.

Suddenly, my mother stepped in front of him.

“My daughter didn’t mean anything, she doesn’t want to go anywhere.”

“But she said she did, dear mother. I heard her,” he said, yellow eyes now training on Ria.

My mother spoke slowly, menacingly: “Shes not going anywhere.”

The fakir’s changing eyes didn’t seem to intimidate my mother the way they did me. I could see that they were shifting around now, from yellow to orange to brown and back. I feared they would become red soon and the man would sprout horns and fangs, would become an efreet in front of all of us.

“Dear mother, fear not! Allah will protect us on our journey!”

“Allah doesn’t have anything to do with you, or any of your dealings. Leave us alone, and go perform your trick. We’re leaving.”

And with that, she grabbed my hand and started dragging us back towards the souk. I looked over my shoulder at al-Akbar, and he passed his twisted, dirty hand over the crowd. There was a collective sigh, and then a murmuring. I didn’t like the sound of it. Everyone started swaying in step with each other.

I turned back and started shoving out of the crowd, but it had become harder. I felt a hand grab my wrist. I shook it off, now terrified. I could feel Ria’s slender hand in mine, but something seemed to be holding her back. I tightened my grip on my mother’s rough, patterned hand.

“The girl wishes to accompany me! You all heard her!”

My sister moaned in fear at this.

Her hand slipped from mine. I yelled in protest, and looked back. My mother’s hand was gone now. I looked the other way, and saw that half a dozen men with vacant looks on their faces were wrestling her to the ground.

Ria was meanwhile being dragged and surfed back towards al-Akbar. She was kicking and screaming, and I saw her kick a woman’s hand from the side. The woman’s wrist bent at a funny angle, and I heard a snapping noise, but she didn’t seem to notice it.

Hands were holding me back, and one was held over my mouth. I screamed into it, but to little effect.

Al-Akbar bellowed like a crocodile over the crowd, “Allah be with us on our journey!”

The people had brought Ria to him, and as he reached out for her, his fingers seemed to grow even longer. I could see his nails stretching out and becoming black. He grabbed her by the shoulders, and she howled in mindless terror at his touch . The group fell back into the crowd, and swayed to the music only they could hear.

The rope around his neck twitched, and then began uncoiling from his neck. It whipped around like a snake, twirling around the two of them. Soon it was free, spinning around them like a sand twister, not touching them, but more making a shell. Through it, I could see a huge, bloody hole in the hollow of the man’s throat, like a gunshot wound.

My mother screamed, and I tried to join her. The crowd was making a mindless humming sound, and continued swaying. Al-Akbar was chanting something in a language I didn’t know, and Ria continued twisting in his grasp, kicking at his legs.

The rope seemed to hesitate, then shot into the hole in the fakir’s throat. His head rocked back from the initial impact, then tipped up, his mouth open. The rope roared straight up, making a nasty purring noise over his teeth as it went. I could see it feeding into the hole, and coming out slightly stained with his blood into the sky.

At this, I bit into the hand over my mouth, barely tasting the blood. I sunfished in their grasp, and broke free. I raced to them, screaming in protest. I tripped at the last, but managed to grab hold of Ria’s ankles.

Al-Akbar looked down at me, and I could see that his eyes really had turned red now, and his teeth had sharpened. Bits of the rope came undone on his fangs as it sped up past his face. He said something, but I couldn’t hear it because of his clogged throat and the ripping noises.

I got to my feet and started pulling, trying to get her out of his grasp.

“Demon! Let her go! Let her go!”

The rope was all the way through now, a pole leading up to nowhere. It looked as high as an apartment building, like a thin palm tree with no fronds. He took hold of it with one hand, and kept the other on my sister’s shoulder.

He said one last word of his chant, and started laughing horribly. The most sickening feeling overcame me, like the first time I was in an elevator in Istanbul, but much worse. The world lurched, and I felt gravity reverse on us. My sense of right side up was now wrong, and the three of us flipped and started falling up towards the end of the rope. Al-Akbar’s hand grabbed at the rope, and we were all hanging with our feet to the sky. He loosened his grip, and we started to slowly slide upwards.

“She’s mine now, child. Begone!” he growled, and kicked me in the face. I felt my nose break under his heel, and my hands let go of Ria’s ankles. I felt the world lurch again as I lost contact with them, and I fell to the ground. I landed on my back with a thud, and looked up at them. Al-Akbar looked down/ up at me, and laughed like a hyena. They started to shimmer like hot air as they slid up the rope.

I screamed at them, and as they reached the end of the rope, I screamed even louder. The rope shivered, and they were gone. Disappeared, into the sky.

The rope became normal again, falling back to the earth. It piled around my head like a cleaned lamb’s intestines.

Everyone started yelling, the spell broken. The woman with the broken wrist held it up to the sky, shrieking in pain. My mother screamed the loudest, the longest.

“Oh God, Katima! Shes gone! Shaitan has taken her and shes gone!”

All I could do was look at the spot in the sky that had swallowed them.

Three weeks later, they found her.

A Tuareg guide found her thirty miles south of Bursa, in the desert. We had begged everyone who would listen to look for her, and showed them the picture we had. Eventually we heard about the girl from the desert, and went to get her.

She took turns of chittering like a bird, and long, deep silences. She wouldn’t speak normally, and if we asked her what happened she’d grow quiet again. If we mentioned al-Akbar, she shrieked, sometimes for hours. If we left her to do as she pleased, she would sit in the sun all day, mumbling and chirping to the sky. We had to force her to eat and drink. My mother would sit with her for hours, crying and trying to get her to play or sing as she once did, without hesitation.

The Turkish authorities would do nothing. We couldn’t tell if they just didn’t believe us, but we could see the looks in some of their eyes when we mentioned al-Akbar. We spent a lot of time in waiting rooms, knowing full well it would lead to nothing.

The doctors and healers could do nothing for her. Expensive prescriptions and tribesmen’s rituals just made her break out in rashes or cry in fear.

Al-Akbar never returned again, as far as we knew. Half the people we talked to had never heard of him, and the other half would fork their hands at us with the mention of his name.

On the other hand, we now had our own trick for the souks: for a few dinars, my beautiful, little sister Ria can cry diamonds. She cries and little diamonds fall into the sand, and she howls  like a jackal afterwards, a hole appearing in her throat.

crying diamons

ONCE UPON A TIME…God celebrated the very first christmas,

He was a good father who had two Sons. The eldest Lucifer and the young one, Jesus. The father spoiled his oldest son, who was never satisfied with the things his dad did for him. As hard as his father tried to please his oldest boy, the harder the son seemed to complain and throw fits
and exclaim that he loved his brother more….

The younger son, Jesus was rather unassuming and, as you might imagine, did not receive the same attention from his father as the older boy did. The younger boy seemed perfectly happy with whatever his dad gave him. In fact, the boy often made better of the circumstances than they actually appeared…

ONE DAY…

JUST BEFORE CHRISTMAS EVE, God the father decided he was going to do something really spectacular for his boys. He had worked many hours of overtime and saved quite a large sum of money to buy expensive gifts for his sons. As he began his scouring all of creation for the ‘perfect gift’, he soon realized that his oldest son would not be happy with just one big gift, so he bought the boy two. Then, after picturing in his mind the older boy’s reaction to only receiving two gifts on Christmas morning, the dad bought three, then four, then five, and so on, until all his resources were spent.

Feeling quite pleased with himself at having bought so many perfect gifts for his oldest son, God, the father suddenly remembered that he had forgotten to purchase even a single gift for his youngest boy. The dad felt ashamed and embarrassed at this oversight. An overwhelming sense of panic struck him like a lightning bolt as he thought of his little boy having no gift to open on Christmas day!

Out of money and with time running out, the father began driving around the block in search of something…. ANYTHING! to give to his youngest son as a gift. Just before he headed back into town, he spotted a German Shepard out for a walk with his owner.

‘Aha!’ he thought. ‘Perhaps I can find a suitable gift there for my little boy.’

With a sliding stop on the shoulder of the road, he leapt from his great chariot and began searching for something of value to give his younger son. He looked in vain, finding nothing suitable as a present.

WISHING NOT TO GO HOME empty-handed, the dad was suddenly aroused by the potent aroma of a handsomely large, pile of freshly deposited dog doo, He had an idea! Rushing back to his car, he shifted some of the store-bought gifts around to different bags. Taking an empty paper sack, he trotted back to the pile of dog shit, and carefully scooped it into the bag. He was quite proud of himself for the skill he deployed in retrieving the ‘special gift’ because it looked as if the German Sheppard had deposited its waste contents into the bag, personally.

RELIEVED AT LAST, the father sped home and spent the next several hours wrapping the various purchases in shiny new paper, trimming each parcel with ribbon and bows and cute name placards (all addressed to Lucifer , of course!) Once again, due to his emphasis on his older son, the dad ran out of paper and trimmings for Jesus’s only gift.

EXHAUSTED BEYOND BELIEF, the dad simply folded the top of the paper sack over twice, ran several staples through to hold it shut, and quickly scrawled his younger son’s name on one side of the bag in pencil. Then, guilt-stricken once again, he quickly shifted what blame he could for this fiasco, by adding the words ‘From Santa’ under his son’s name. Then he shoved the bag to the most remote corner under the tree and crawled off to bed for a few hours of rest.

AND THE BOYS AWOKE EARLY. Rushing into the semi-darkness of the living room, to the foot of the beautifully decorated Christmas tree, Lucifer shoved his little brother, Jesus aside and flung himself headlong into the mountain of gifts addressed to ‘only’ him. In a whirlwind of shredded paper and peals and outbursts of spontaneous delight, he tore into every gift in record-breaking time. There must have been 50 presents ripped open by the eldest child!

AND TRUE TO HIS PLEASANT DISPOSITION the oldest boy, after dumping the contents of the last gift unceremoniously onto the carpet, shifted his expression of glee into a horrible twist of a scowl and screamed at the top of his voice,

‘IS THAT ALL I GOT?!!!’ His father stood in the afterglow of this warm reception in something akin to a stupor. He was, in fact, speechless.
JUST THEN…

Jesus , who had been sitting patiently in anticipation of the wonderful gift(s) he would open, turned and asked his father, ‘Daddy, what did you get for me?’

A nuclear war head could not have pierced the father’s heart with more ferocity than the words his little boy spoke. Feeling like all the blood was draining from his trembling body, still unable to talk, the dad pointed a shaky finger to the dark shadows at the farthest point beneath the tree. This was too much to bear! The father began sobbing uncontrollably at the sight of his little Jesus eagerly and gingerly pulling the paper sack out from under the tree. His son had an expression on his face as if the bag were filled with the most precious gift on earth!

SLOWLY AND WITH GREAT CARE the younger son removed each staple. As he read the message on the outside, tears welled up in his eyes, as he excitedly proclaimed, ‘Daddy, it’s from Santa!!!’

THE LITTLE SON’S FACE did not change expression, even as the unpleasant odor of the bag’s contents escaped into the room like a bursting dam. He peeked into the bag and paused…. (The father felt his own heart stop beating at that very instance.)

HIS RIGHT EYEBROW RAISED EVER SO SLIGHTLY once the boy recognized the shapely pile that was his new gift.

‘OH, FATHER!! OH, FATHER!!’ the boy cried with great joy.

‘Oh how wonderful, Daddy, I almost got a dog!”

Lucifer was green with envy, he pursed his upper lip, then pouted and cried,
“You love him more than me!”

Our family would go fishing at Lake Shawnee to get a supply of kokanee. Funny Bone was the best fish smoker in California. Slices of that salmon would melt on your tongue and tasted like something too delicious to come from anywhere but heaven. He made jerked beef that lasted us all winter, and fish enough to survive. Its hard to understand how poor you are when you eat food envied by the rich. Sometimes we camped out for weeks at a time, folks coming and going.

Funny Bone and his sons camped nearby the main camp. Robert and Daniel
ghostwolf were good boys. Trouble is they were young enough to take everything as an offense when it came to race. Couldn’t blame them, and roberts buddy, Aiden, came to camp for a hunt, was a gangly piece of rope with eruptions all over his body, and he was always looking for a fight.

Funny Bone wasn’t his real name. Tourists gave him that name because he would put on a show for them up in Mount Shasta. His real name was Standing Wolf, and I called him Uncle Wolf. Up in Shasta in the summer, Uncle Wolf cavorted around, frying eggs on the sidewalks for the tourists. He used whiskey for after shave because whites expected every Indian to be a drunk.

One night at the campfire of an earlier trip I asked Uncle Wolf why he played dumb Indian. It made me mad because I knew what a smart man he was. He called me Brave sister .

“Little Sister of the wolf, those white people give me lots of money for my dancing around like that. I take it to the tribe so we can have medicine and other things we need. I dont care what those people think.”

” But, Uncle Wolf, if you just showed them how smart you are, people wouldn’t think so bad about Indians”
.
” People think what they want, little one. You just take what you know on into the future with you, and remember for me,” Uncle Wolf had a far away look in his eyes ,

Canoes were the only boats allowed on the smaller lakes, being perfect for parting the vegetation that overwhelmed the lake. Bass liked those deep, dark holes where they could hide from fishermen. I was allowed to ride in Uncle Wolfs canoe and I would close my eyes and see ancient days, when The People would be in teepees along the river, their children tied to trees on shore to keep them from drowning.

We were in brushy waters,waiting for a big walleye or a bass. As I opened my eyes and looked down, I saw a strange bubble of air and what looked to be a face.

“Uncle Wolf, somebodys down there!” I pointed to a thick clump of weeds. Without a word Uncle Wolf dove into the water and pulled a half-dead Aiden out of the water. We wrestled him into the canoe, as the water was shallow in most parts.

Once we got Aiden on land, Uncle Wolf began trying to make him puke up the greasy water. With a sigh of relief from both of us, Uncle Wolf managed to squeeze the thin boys chest free of water. Uncle Wolf winked at me, Probably the first bath that boy has had all year.

Later, by the fire, Aiden leaned as if weak, against a spruce tree. He was stone silent. All of us were around the fire. Grandpa stoneface sat in a canvas chair at the head of the fire. He tapped his foot for over an hour, waiting for Aiden to thank Uncle Wolf. The silence was haunting, filled with the words of all of us.

Finally, Grandpa spoke up. ” Aden, boy, how you feelin?”

Aiden raised his head and whispered, ‘Bout done in, gramps”.

“Spect you left your tongue down in that fishin hole?”

” No sir”. Aiden knew what was coming and you could read the resentment in his eyes as he put off the inevitable.

“Seems to me you were just as good as dead, not knowin how to swim and all. What do you think, Aiden, was you near-dead?” Grandpa Stoneface ground out his words and Aiden fidgeted.

Aiden kept his eyes between his feet, hoping Grandpa would forget about him. It didnt work. “What problem you might have with someone else dont interest me, Aiden. That man saved your no-good life.”

Aiden was turning red, and not from the fire. “Dang Injuns, dont even want to live in proper houses! “.

The government had brought pre-fabs to the reservation for the Flatheads. They were every color you could imagine. They were fidgety little boxes where no mans spirit would want to live. So the Flatheads lived in their shacks or teepees, happy with what they could provide for themselves. After a few years the houses were ramshackle and the doors hung open on empty dwellings, creaking in the wind. Home to spiders and wildlife.

Well now, Aiden, we all know how stupid you really are. There were some question before, but you made it real plain.”

Aiden was squirming against his tree and wringing his hands together. Grandpa was not only head of our family, he was well-known and respected by most everyone, as a man of his word and a hard worker. Aiden, being an ignorant Red Neck should have tread easy, but he wasn’t bright.

“Dont give a damn.” Aiden could hear the silence gathering.

In a low growl, Grandpa said, “Mind your mouth around the women and youngsters, you hear?”
aiden started to rise, but Grandpa swung hard with his marshmallow stick and it landed close to boys throat. He sat back down, a welt rising on his bruised neck.

“I reckon a lot of folks round here wonder about me and Funny Bone , stupid white man’s name. Uncle Wolf saved my life, back that time the bear got me on The Meadow.

The child in me gently patted the right side of Grandpas ear, where an ear should have been. I had heard this story a thousand times, but I love hearing it, close against my Grandpa and the fire making me sleepy.

“Was at Big Bear meadow Camp one year, Grandpa began. I was out on a hunt and so was Wolf. We was just a few yards apart in some real brushy tangle. That little cub of Sissies, remember that, Sissie?”

Drowsy, I answered, “Yes sir, I surely do remember. I”m so sorry that bear got you.”

Grandpa was going point toward a place where black bear was plentiful. Uncle Wolf was wing man. Then he heard crashing in the underbrush and thought it might be that big un they had glimpsed about sunset. It wasnt. It was a mama bear mad as tar at us for messing with her cub. She rose out of the brush and her roar still lingers in my memory. She was a big grizzly and she raced right for Grandpa. Uncle Wolf had her scent and hurried along to help Grandpa.

He got to Grandpa just as that she bear made a swipe for his face. The bear jumped and whirled around, sore as a hornet about the stick in her side. If Wolf hadn’t startled the bear, Grandpa would have been sliced right in two. That was the year Uncle Wolf made me part of the tribe, naming me Sisterwolf. Grandpas head always bore scars of those long nails on that bear.

To Grandpa’s way of thinking, he owed Wolf his life. Not just for this time, but for many others when Wolf kept him out of harms way. That made them brothers. They made themselves blood brothers, the greatest honor one man could give another.

“So, you listen here, boy, I expect you to apologize to Standing wolf, good and proper.” Grandpas stern voice meant every word he said. “And if you cant find enough humanness in you, then I’ll expect you gone by mornin. No man sits at my fire who can’t respect another man.”

Come morning, the camp was empty, Aiden must’ve parted. Funny Bone just joked about it,
saying “white man in red pick up flying union jack, has dearly departed.”

We didn’t exactly know what he meant by that, and we never asked.